Awards

Sandy has received numerous awards, including the Vice President’s Hammer Award for Students.gov, the FSA CIO Innovator of the Year award, the eGov 2000 Trail Blazer Award, the Secretary of Education’s Special Award, and FedScoop’s DC’s Top 50 Women in Tech.

After graduating as an e-Gov Fellow of the Partnership for Public Service (formerly Council for Excellence in Government), she became a Co-Coach of the E-Government Fellows program.

England and the Students.gov team received the Vice President’s Hammer Award from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (August 2000). The award recognized the team for putting customers first, cutting red tape, partnering with other agencies, and improving government service.
The Vice President’s Hammer Award is reserved for teams of pioneers who create an innovative and unique process or program to make government work better and achieve results Americans care about. The Award recognizes accomplishments that are not repetitive of other awards or do not show only plans for future accomplishments. Hammer Awards go to teams who have shown large impacts on customer service, bottom-line results, streamlining government, saving money and exemplary achievements in government problem-solving. Nominations should reflect effective and creative examples of government at its best.

The Award is the Vice President’s answer to yesterday’s government and its $400 hammer. Fittingly, the award consists of a $6.00 hammer, a ribbon, and a note from Vice President Gore, all in an aluminum frame. More than 1,200 Hammer Awards have been presented to teams comprised of federal employees, state and local employees, and citizens who are working to build a better government.

In May 2000, England and the Students.gov team received the E-Gov 2000 Trail Blazer Award from E-Gov for developing an exceptional public -sector solution in the e-government community. The E-Gov 2000 Award Selection Committee chose a limited number of programs to distinguish as E-Gov 2000 Trail Blazers—a new tier of exceptional solutions that merit recognition within the E-Government community. The nominated programs (almost 100 total) were judged by a panel of government and industry leaders in Electronic Government programs. The E-Gov 2000 selection committee included representatives from the General Services Administration, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, and the U.S. Department of Commerce, as well as industry counterparts. This small, consultative body reviewed each nomination and selected 23 programs to recognize as Trail Blazers in E-Government.

England and the Project EASI (Easy Access for Students and Institutions) Core Team were recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education with the Secretary’s Special Award (03/1999), in appreciation for contribution to a student-centered financial aid delivery system.